Two years ago I partcipated in a focus group for Grolsch. Having grown up on the west coast, I primarily associated Grolsch with the midwest, seeing as it was always the midwestern beer-o-philes, seeing as it had the weird German-style bottle and it was the midwesterners in college who instantly cited it whenever you needed a beer starting with G in the beer alphabet drinking game.


As it turns out, Grolsch is brewed in Holland just like Heineken and Amstel. Judging by the tenor of the focus group organizers, the brand managers were very concerned that the brew guys like me didn't know this off hand. I remember a question or two about "What would you think if we told you Grolsch was in Holland."

Anyway, the funniest part of the focus group was the opening question. This was in New York, so the guy asked us "If Grolsch was a person where would he hang out in the city." The other guys in the group, maybe in an attempt to curry more $100 focus group invites, started playing on Grolsch's vanity: "I see Grolsch as kind of a downtown guy, night clubs, that sort of thing. Grolsch likes to have a good time, you know" I, on the other hand, saw Grolsch hanging out in one of those out of those offbeat Brooklyn bars where everybody wears Carhartt jackets and is a Minnesota or Wisconsin transplant and Husker Du is on the jukebox. The moderator quickly shifted away from that one, following up with the same question about Heineken. "Heineken's a little stuck up if you ask me," said one guy. "I think Grolsch could kick Heineken's ass," said another. "Definitely," said another guy. "I don't know," said. "Heineken's the go-to beer every time I'm in a black bar. Heineken, Budweiser, maybe Guinness in a bottle if it's a West Indian place. That's what you always see. Heineken's got a little street cred."

Anyway, the focus group ended with a discussion of advertising. The ads were print ads, mostly of the "Bringing a little Amsterdam to the city" variety, if I remember. The Grolsch toadies ate it up. Another guy who worked a vaguely liberal arts-ish job like me (I'm a teacher) joined me in the holdout category. We both saw it as a mistake for Grolsch to pass itself off as Holland's No. 2 beer when it was the bottle design and under-the-radar status that gave the beer its edge. We were quietly ignored like the 7th grade loser outcasts we were.

Based on this limited data set and Seth's article, I would guess that "Amsterdam" carries a certain branding weight in the urban beer drinker category. Instead of giving us the images we American beer drinkers truly associate with the country: marijuana buds, seedy brothels, and orange-faced soccer fans, however, they prefer to play it safe. I'm with Seth. I like to drink my beer in a bar, not along a scenic canal. Unless you're planning to raise the alcohol content a couple percentage points, spare me the foreign travel fantasy.